All I Want
by falln-angl
Summary: Gordo questions Miranda.


**Title: **All I Want  
**Rating: **G  
**Summary: **Gordo questions Miranda.  
**Type of fic: **Vignette/One-shot  
**Disclaimer: **Miranda, Gordo, and all _Lizzie McGuire_ related stuff belongs to Disney and…whoever else has rights to them.  
**Author's notes: **Inspired somewhat by matchbox twenty's "All I Need". Slight AU, in that Lizzie and Gordo never kissed. I seem to have hit a wall with _It's Time_, so hopefully this will tide you guys over until I can chip away at that wall. Just a little ditty.

-

All it took was one look. One of those so-brief-it-makes-you-wonder-if-you-saw-it-at-all look. It was a cross between a frown and a grimace, with the slightest hint of exasperation. Then she smiled her mega-watt smile, eyes bright and sparkling. And the existence of that look was doubted.

But it had been there. Fleetingly.

With a jolt, he realised that it wasn't the first time he had ever seen that particular look flicker through her features. This was just the first time he considered the reasoning behind such a look. It was worth investigating.

'What do you think, Gordo?' Lizzie McGuire asked, interrupting his thoughts.

David Gordon looked at his blonde bestfriend, frowning slightly. 'Think about what?'

Lizzie looked sternly at him. 'Haven't you been listening?' She sighed, shaking her head. 'I was just telling Miranda that the three of us should go on some kind of road trip after graduation. What do you think?'

'Oh.' He turned to his brunette bestfriend. 'Didn't you say that?'

Miranda Sanchez lifted her shoulders in a careless shrug. 'Can't remember.'

_He_ remembered. It had been a random, spontaneous comment. Months ago.

_"We should go away somewhere, just the three of us before college. Who knows when we'll all see each other again when it starts?"_

And that one look belied her reply. Miranda remembered, but let it slide. Because Lizzie was now suggesting it, and it was a good idea.

He studied her for a moment, contemplating the thought of contradicting her words. Decided against it. He needed to ponder a little longer. 'Yeah, sure,' he nodded. 'Who knows when we'll see each other again once college starts?'

Miranda's brows furrowed ever so faintly.

-

Miranda was pursuing a career in fashion design. It seemed a fitting vocation for one so confident and unapologetic when it came to her own inimitable style.

He recalled a time when her passion had been music. She learnt to play the piano and the guitar. She had even planned on eventually educating herself on drums. And she had started to write her own music and her own lyrics. Miranda had an amazing voice. They all knew that she would make it, would be discovered, would sign a record deal, would be known as America's new musical sweetheart.

Then…she stopped. One day she just ceased talking about music, had shrugged and decided that maybe fashion would be more her forte. He had been puzzled, but had let it slide. Miranda's mind was, at times, capricious.

But the days, weeks, months passed, and her enthusiasm for music - her own music - never returned. Sure, she and Lizzie conversed and giggled endlessly over so-and-so from such-and-such a band or group. It wasn't the same.

He suddenly found the need to discover the cause for Miranda having abandoned what had been her life's dream. Something he should have done long ago.

He picked up his jacket. It was cold outside.

-

'Hey, Gordo.' The door swung wide open. 'Come on in.'

'Thanks, Mrs Sanchez,' he replied, smiling at the older woman. 'Is Miranda home yet?' He knew that his brunette bestfriend had gone to the library after school.

'She came home half an hour ago. Just go on up.'

'Thanks, Mrs Sanchez,' he said again. With a smile, Miranda's mother nodded and walked towards the kitchen. Already aromas of what promised to be a mouth-watering feast permeated throughout the house. He lingered a few moments, his stomach beginning to stir with gentle rumblings of hunger. Mrs Sanchez was, by far, the best cook in town.

With hopes of being invited to stay for dinner, he started to climb the stairs. Miranda's room was the last on the left. The door was ajar when he approached and, knocking lightly against the wood, he pushed it open. 'Hey, Mir-'

'Hey!' Miranda's voice was high-pitched and startled. 'Wait! Stop!'

In the split second it had taken his neurons to process what his eyes were seeing, his heart seemed to have both skipped a beat and launched into hyper drive. It took slightly longer to turn away, his mind already replaying the image of Miranda clutching at a sliding towel around her body. Warmth suffused his face.

'Geez, Gordo!' Miranda said loudly, though not with outrage. 'Ever heard of knocking?'

He silently cursed himself, both for his carelessness and his unexpected inability to wipe a towel-clad Miranda from his mind's eye. 'I'm sorry! I wanted to talk and- I'm sorry!'

'Are you just going to stand there with the door open and your eyes shut?' she asked, sounding amused. Or was that maybe wishful thinking? 'Or are you going to give me a couple of minutes?'

'Oh! Right. Sorry, Mir.' He stepped back into the hallway and pulled the door close with a firm click. He breathed out slowly, shaking his head. There was no way he could ever look her in the face again. Then again, it wasn't like he actually saw anything. Just-

With effort, he swiftly ended - terminated, crushed, utterly erased - that thought. It could only lead to destinations best left undiscovered.

'Okay, you careless oaf,' Miranda sang out. 'You can come in now. I'm decent.'

He breathed out slowly and shook his head, clearing it of all impropriety, before turning the doorknob and pushing the door inwards. 'How decent?' he jested, hoping Miranda didn't notice that his tone was slightly higher pitched than normal.

The sound of her laughter dissipated any lingering awkwardness between them. 'Very decent.'

He looked at her, and grinned. 'Don't worry, Mir, no need to get embarrassed. I didn't see anything.'

She rolled her eyes. 'Please. We took sex ed together. I don't have anything you haven't seen before.' One thing about Miranda - her confidence never ceased to amaze him. 'So, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at home figuring out ways to _finally_ ask Lizzie out?'

'That's what I wanted to talk to you about.'

'Oh, good. I get to be an accomplice.'

'No, not that,' he said, waving his hand dismissively. 'There was something I wanted to ask you.'

Miranda smirked at him. 'I give you permission, Gordo. Out with it.'

He looked at her, his brow furrowing slightly. 'Why did you give up on music?'

She looked confused. 'What?'

'In middle school, your passion was music. It was everything you wanted. But at the start of high school, you suddenly stopped, liked you'd given up.' He stopped, his frown deepening as fragments of memory returned. 'You stopped on the day Lizzie was invited to sing at the MTV Awards.'

Shoulders lifted in a far-too-casual shrug. Eyes sliding to the floor in avoidance of his gaze. 'Oh, that. Yeah, well, what are you gonna do?'

But he would not concede so easily. 'You loved music. I mean, I remember a time when you even wanted to become a violinist. You were so dedicated.'

'I still love it.'

Words spoken so softly that he had to wonder if he heard anything at all. 'What?'

'I haven't given up on music, Gordo,' she said, raising her head to look at him. 'I still write, and to make sure I don't forget, I still play the piano and the guitar.'

'But-'

'But music is Lizzie's thing now.'

He grew unexpectedly frustrated. 'That makes no sense! Just because-'

'I guess one of the reasons I was attracted to music so much was because it was something that was mine, and mine alone,' Miranda interrupted. 'It wasn't me _and _Lizzie. It was just me. And when the whole Rome thing happened, well…' She sighed. 'Don't get me wrong. I'm happy for Lizzie, and I know she'll do great with her singing, but I don't want to known as "that girl who followed her bestfriend Lizzie McGuire into music". That's not me, Gordo.'

'But-'

'Gordo, enough. I get where you're coming from, okay? Maybe I _am_ being a little immature about not pursuing music as a career, but I haven't given up on it. I love it as much as I ever did, but now I write and I play for me only.' Miranda paused. 'And for my family. On occasion.'

'But aren't you mad at Lizzie?'

'Why should I be?' She was genuinely confused. 'Lizzie didn't plan Rome. It just happened.'

He blinked, and that brief action seemed to have done something to his vision. His brunette bestfriend seemed different, changed. Or maybe _he_ had changed? He looked at Miranda with new wonder and admiration, and with deep respect.

'Why are you looking at me like that?' Miranda asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

'Like what?'

'Like _that_. You don't believe me, do you?'

'Of course I believe you, Mir,' he said, frowning slightly. It stung that she would think the worst of him. 'I guess it just… I was thinking about you, that's all. You, and then Lizzie. And how things seem to happen in that order. You, then Lizzie.'

'Don't you mean _Lizzie_, then me?' she teased.

No longer impaired with Lizzie-tinted vision, he shook his head. 'No, I don't. You're one hell of a girl, Sanchez.'

She laughed. Strange how he never realised how wonderful a sound it was, clear and free and with unmistakable joy. 'Nice of you to finally notice, Gordo.'

Finally, indeed.

'Man, I'm starving! Staying for dinner?' Miranda asked.

He smiled. 'I never thought you'd ask.'

**/end.**


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